Load Master is better than Dillon

[pastor]

The warranty from Dillon is good for the equipment no matter what number owner you happen to be, whether your the 2nd or the 25th they will stand behind their loading equipment if it fails

[Longwood]

I saw a youtube video of a guy cranking out 45s with a SDB strapped to some sort of a board, or rickety "bench" of some sort. Crazy how fast that sucker can crank out the ammo.

I can make my video's run fast or run slow.
I can stop it and restart it and edit it until I can fool some into believing I am loading fast on a single stage. Even free editing programs will do it...
I can take a bad video then make it look great.
That is why it amazes me that there is so much un-edited garbage on you tube.

Duuhhh! What is a SDB?

[MBTcustom]

Dillon Square Deal B?

[Longwood]

Dillon Square Deal B?

Thanks Tim,,,
I still have a few thousand acronyms to memorize.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Tim: Don't tell them it is second hand just tell them whats wrong.

Both my SDB's are second hand and I bought one off Ebay and one off Brian, Dillon sent me small parts for both N/C.

As far as those SDB's go They may look rickety to some but I assure you guys they are one of the best designed machines of any type I have ever seen, and they feel solid and extremely smooth to operate.

NOne of these outfits have slouches for engineers. I personally think Dillon's Engineers are among the best in any business, and that Gatling gun they make is designed by the same guys that designed the loading machines so they get my vote for the best..

Tim: the unpainted parts on the loaders are pressure cast in a permanent mould out of aluminum. This is NOT die casting and you'll notice there are no voids in these castings.

The Main Frame is cast from aluminum also and not magnausium. It's too expensive to make stuff like this out of, plus there's that pesky tendency to burn white hot that would be considered a negative around gun powder..

Randy

[MBTcustom]

Tim: the unpainted parts on the loaders are pressure cast in a permanent mould out of aluminum. This is NOT die casting and you'll notice there are no voids in these castings.

Now Randy, I'm not the sharpest tack in the drawer, but isn't "pressure cast in a permanent mould" kind of a definition of "die casting"? Its better than sand casting, and any foundry worth their salt will not have voids in the castings, but its still a cheap casting and not as strong or expensive a machined part, and I have noticed no voids in Lee equipment either, but it too is all made from cast metal.

The Main Frame is cast from aluminum also and not magnausium. It's too expensive to make stuff like this out of, plus there's that pesky tendency to burn white hot that would be considered a negative around gun powder..

OK OK myth is official busted. I heard somewhere that Dillon used magnesium or magnesium-aluminum on their press frames. I considered this a real possibility given the physical characteristics of that metal. As far as its ability to burn being a negative? Ummmm yeah, when its subjected to extreme heat and sparks, but in a reloading situation, if you have the environment present that is able to ignite a solid magnesium casting, then you don't need to have powder and primers anywhere near it, as those things are more dangerous/flammable/unstable than a solid magnesium casting ever thought about being. Furthermore, It bears mentioning that you can burn almost any metal given the right circumstances. Titanium shavings, for instance, burns with an intense white light. An easy fire starter is to take a 9v battery and stroke the terminals on a piece of steel wool. (be careful when trying this! It does work very well, and should only be tried in a safe place away from the reloading bench!)

[garym1a2]

Castings are strong enough for car motors, reloading presses do not have enough force on them to require machined steel unless you do something wrong.

[375RUGER]

you know those magnesium fire starter blocks? put a flame to one and tell me if it burns. it doesn't. When you shave the block into little bitty pieces, increasing the surface area in relation to the volume of material, then you have magnesium that will burn.
Magnesium is difficult(not impossible) to ignite in mass form but hard to stop once you get it started.
It is a wonderful, lightweight structural material to build with. One of Halliburton's cement pump trucks has magnesium alloy wheels in order to reduce the overall weight enough to make it highway legal.

[MBTcustom]

Castings are strong enough for car motors, reloading presses do not have enough force on them to require machined steel unless you do something wrong.

And yet, when buying a single stage press everybody insists on RCBS or some other cast iron frame rig while poo-pooing the Lee single stage press?
I am aware that the press does not need to be that strong, but when I pay premium price for a piece of machinery and it is made entirely out of cast aluminum, I have to wonder why. Its a premium piece of machinery. I expect the parts to be made of the material they are because they work better when they are made of that material. Why is the sliding part of the Dilon powder measure made of cast aluminum? I know it will wear out eventually if I am cutting stick powder with it all the time. I'm not saying that it isn't a sweet press, but I can tell when things are made to cut cost, and Dillon is doing the same thing that Lee is doing, only better: They overcome cheap materials with ingenious design.
All I'm saying is that for the price, I expected an iron press, with machined aluminum die blocks and a powder measure with steel workings. With the Dillon, these parts are all made of cast aluminum, but, their customer service covers a multitude of sins.

[r1kk1]

My opinion. There are different types of Al alloys. A progressive machine should not be the only press on a bench. A good single stage press is extremely useful for many tasks that a progressive is not called upon. I have a press on my bench that is said to be 40x more than is needed to reload. I will let you know is it needs to be 41x.

Take care

r1kk1

[W.R.Buchanan]

Tim: Die Casting is similar to pressure casting in that the part is cast in a mould that is permanent but die casting usually uses a metal alloy that is mixed to flow well as opposed to mixed for strength. You've heard of Pot metal? Well that's what the use in diecasting. It has a lot of zinc in it which like tin in our lead concoctions promotes flowing. Also it is usually done by gravity feed, hence the need to flow easily to fill all the nooks and crannys . It can be done by pressure also but it is not the smae pressure as Pressure casting.

Pressure casting is used when the part is so complicated that gravity wouldn't fill the mould completely, and the pressures are much higher with this process.

As far as the strength of the casting used in the main body of the Dillon presses,,, You have to look at the usage. It all about what is needed to do the job. There is no significant difference in the cost of casting aluminum vs cast iron. There is a difference in machining it afterwards. Strength-wise they are similar depending on which alloys we are taliking about. Regular 356 cast aluminum is around 35K psi, cast iron is around 65K psi, and 7075 aluminum is @76K psi. But if you don't need 60K psi then why use that material?

I would submit that the big Lee cast iron press could just as easiy be made of cast aluminum and do just as good a job. The design is inherantly strong as it is.

Also when making complicated parts good quality castings are far more cost effective than machining from bar stock.

I have a friend that runs Advance Adapters. They make adapters to adapt this engine to that transmission, and are very big in the world of Jeeps. They sell a bunch of different parts and most all of them are castings. When you are talking 1000's of parts casting is definately the way to go both cost wise and man hour per part wise.

Picking the right material for a given job is what it's all about.

Randy

[MBTcustom]

In no way am I trying to poo-poo the Dillon press by the way. It seems to have enough strength everywhere it needs it. Also, for my personal use, I enjoy that most of the parts are simple to build here in my shop, so If I need to beef something up or make small changes, it is a relatively simple thing to do.
I am seriously thinking about getting or making a military primer pocket swager. I never had very many troubles with the single stage press, but these progressives are picky! One thing that surprized me from the get go on this 550 was how little pressure it takes to seat the primer in the brass. I am used to "feeling" for the pocket on my Rock Chucker, but this baby will just smoosh it in there weather its lined up or not. I had a few brass shavings that got in the primer cup under the primers and the finished cartridges had "crossbones" pressed into the primers. This is purely a result of military crimped brass, and will have to be remedied. Has anyone used the Hornady reamers?
By the way, I'm getting my buddy Jason over here this weekend (bribed him with beer) to try out the Dillon. He's the one I helped with the primer issue on the Loadmaster. I will let you know his comments as well, as he has had a lot more time behind the Loadmaster than I have. I'm very interested to see how he likes the Dillon. I told him to bring his components and see how he likes it.
This has been one heck of a thread I tell ya!

[UNIQUEDOT]

Has anyone used the Hornady reamers?

The reamers i use are the Lyman reamers powered by their pedestal crank. I used to have a Wilson reamer and it was better than the Lyman reamers. If i fail to properly ream a primer pocket my Loadmaster will destroy the primer while pushing it in and since it primes on the upstroke feel can't be relied on at all. If i hear a crunch sound i know that I've missed a crimped pocket.

[Defcon-One]

I use an RCBS primer pocket swager setup. Slow but you control the depth and amount of roll on the edges. It will make them look and function like factory, non-crimped brass.

5,000 rounds of 5.56mm ammo through my Dillon RL550B without any issues. Over 60% was crimped primers pockets. It was sized, trimmed, primer pockets swaged then polished. I set the size die high to just poke through the pocket to make sure primer hole is clear.

Get or make a primer pocket swager setup! It will end any primer seating issues. I do not like to ream/cut the crimp off. Just swage it back where it was.

[375RUGER]

If i fail to properly ream a primer pocket my Loadmaster will destroy the primer while pushing it in and since it primes on the upstroke feel can't be relied on at all. If i hear a crunch sound i know that I've missed a crimped pocket.

That's actually some good info to know for someone who is comparing presses.
That right there is a big turn off for me as I want to "feel" the primer seat and have no other operation going on.
It doesn't take long, especially if you are doing several hundred rounds per week, to develop the feel and know if a primer went in sideways. On rare occasions, when switching out priming systems, if I didn't get the ram lined up just right and flipped a primer I knew it.
There is a lot of mechanical advantage when priming on the machine. Yes it is easy to fully seat a primer sideways, but you should be able to tell that something didn't feel quite right. On the rare occasion that it happens I remove that case have 1 empty station and it goes in next to deprime and process as usual.

[UNIQUEDOT]

That's actually some good info to know for someone who is comparing presses.
That right there is a big turn off for me as I want to "feel" the primer seat and have no other operation going on.

Yep the loadmaster primes on the upstroke via an adjustable depth setting. I think the Dillon 1050 also primes on the upstroke, but there is no place for a primer pocket swager on the Loadmaster and it's rare indeed for it to prime a crimped pocket without crushing or at least damaging the primer.

[Alvarez Kelly]

Why is the sliding part of the Dillon powder measure made of cast aluminum?

I have a few steel ones Tim.

[MBTcustom]

I think I may make a steel one myself. Actually, brass sounds pretty cool lookin!

[Alvarez Kelly]

Actually, brass sounds pretty cool lookin!

Well, I think you could make one pretty easily!

[Longwood]

Well, I think you could make one pretty easily!

Anodize the cast one.
Pink would look nice with blue.
Snicker snicker,,,